Vanquishing the Republic: Harry and Meghan in Australia

“The establishment of a republic… means
insurrectionary war, it means the desolation of a thousand
households. When the question shall arise, it will be
determined… by balls from cannon and from musket, by grape
and shrapnel, by bayonet and by the sword.”

Sir Alfred
Stephen, NSW Legislative Council , June 16, 1887

The
republic has tended to be a dormant idea in Australian
politics for decades. The People’s Advocate, a
Sydney-based publication, was unduly optimistic in its June 17, 1854 note
which spoke of, “The independence of the Australian
colonies” being more than an “abstract idea. It is
certainly approaching as it is the dawn of tomorrow’s
sun.” Occasional flashes of republican sentiment can be
found in the historical record, but these have been, in the
main, suppressed in favour of a monarchy housed in
residences ten thousand miles away.

In 1999, the
Republic idea was essentially buried by vote, a feat not
without some genius on the part of the then Prime Minister,
John Howard. Sensing that more than a few Australians were
keen to detach the British dominion from its monarchical
moorings, Howard first initiated a “people’s
convention” which, he sensed, would botch up any prospect
of advancing a decent model to vote upon. The Republican
grouping, distant and smug, was (and here, history is
instructive) led by the now deposed Prime Minister Malcolm
Turnbull.

Pro-monarchist groups such as Australians for
Constitutional Monarchy pursue a line not merely paradoxical
but absurd. The British Crown is raised to the level of
sacrosanct mother, protector, and unifier. How this
squares with sovereignty is a baffling exercise of
self-delusion, but one happily embraced by such individuals
as Gregory R. Copley, President of the International
Strategic Studies Association based in Washington, D.C.

As the globe is fractured by bursts of populist
dissatisfaction, suggested Copley at the Annual
Conference of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy held
at the New South Wales Parliament earlier this month,
monarchy was indispensable. “It is an appropriate time,
then to ask where Australia would be today, without the
enduring presence of the Crown - our most visible icon of
sovereignty and unity - in Australian life.” In a paean
to monarchical systems of government, Copley goes dew-eyed
at the fate of monarchies in the 20th century, whose
collapse “was the precursor of today’s global
framework.” This unfortunate turn of events left “a
global strategic framework which was inherently
fragile.”

The visit by Prince Harry and his new wife,
Hollywood second (third?) tier actress Meghan Markle, Duke
and Duchess of Sussex, has turned the Australian public - or
a good part of it at least - to a grotesque, gibbering
sight. This is not sovereignty extolled but emotional
slavery demonstrated, the psyche imprisoned in a historical,
hereditary system of government. There have been scenes of
imbecilic insensibility as the couple do the rounds. Young
mothers, with their barely sentient offspring, have been
waiting at strategic points for the young couple as they
arrive at various venues. Bad weather has proven no
deterrent.

People of all age groups have gathered, phones
at the ready, to take those snaps that will be shared with
the enthusiastic dissemination of a nymphomaniac with
venereal disease. Hours have been expended in the hope to
gain a fleeting glance of the royal candy. Even more
unforgivably, nominally respectable journalists have taken
to holding flags in anticipation, becoming the very
spectacle they are covering.

The words of the Dubbo speech
by Prince Harry have been poured over with a reverence
befitting subjects rather than citizens, an immaturity that
does much to dispel notions of a firm egalitarian
sensibility. The prince was, after all, speaking to “the
salt of the earth”, the “backbone of this country.”
Harry had turned shrink - or at least a patient healed by
one. The rural occupants of Australia’s farming
communities, earth’s salt and national backbone, duly
listened. “We know that suicide rates in rural and remote
areas are greater than in urban populations and this may be
especially true among young men in remote regions.” He spoke of “one huge community and with
that comes an unparalleled internal support and
understanding.”

The Duke and Duchess were being
portrayed as the accessible royal couple, and those who dare
venture into the outback. “The best part about visiting
country Australia,” claimed the prince, “is the
people.” Well and good, but Harry was merely following a
scheduled pattern stretching back to 1954 when his
grandmother made Dubbo a stopping point to visit her
subjects, all part of visiting “her people”.

Former
residents made their return just to see another royal visit.
The Dubbo-born sisters Elizabeth Atkin and Sharon Askew (nee
Hind) expressed their gushing desire to revisit some family
folklore, given that their grandmother had been asked to
prepare a posy of flowers for Queen Elizabeth on that Dubbo
tour. “It’s because of this history and it is important
to us,” explained Atkin, “it has become your
family folk-law.” The Daily Liberal, one of the
papers covering the events in Dubbo enticed
readers to search through any pictures that might have been
snapped of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex during their
“Picnic in the Park”. “See if… you’re in our
pictures.”

Some local must always be selected for the
occasion, the point where the royal meets subject, and that
subject, it so happens, was Luke Vincent of Buninyong
Primary School. Of immediate interest to the child was the
Prince’s beard - the royal facial hair within hand’s
reach. Principal Anne van Dartell was beside herself in
ecstatic observation; Luke’s mother, Danielle Sparrow,
“just started crying and shaking” being “happy because
that’s just Luke and the love he shows.” The lachrymose
campaign had taken hold. “That’s our Lukey, the
Lukey-love-effect, he’s just full of lots of love.”

The visit had brought out the obsessives, the
surveillance vultures keen to capture every single moment of
the tour. An Instagram fan page dedicated to the couple notes
with somewhat creepy insistence each “special moment”, a
“pretty much minute by minute” account on “cute”
scenes. The vanquishing of any Australian republic, without
bayonet, cannon or musket, has been assured, not merely
because of a continued desire to see monarchy as the tit of
reassurance, but its youth as modern celebrities of a social
media world which has sacralised them as creatures to be
revered rather than mocked.

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